Mother, 35, arrested for killing her two daughters by feeding them rusted nails

A 35-year-old woman in Ajmer has killed her two daughters - three-year-old Sonia and seven-month-old Samridhi - by feeding them rusted nails and nut bolts in milk.

Ratna alias Sunita, the mother, was arrested on Monday and sent to judicial custody after she confessed to the crime.

Post-mortem investigations established that the girls had died four days ago, and rusted nails were found in their viscera.

Dr R.K. Mathur of the Jawahar Lal Nehru Hospital said, the nails had choked the girls’ windpipes and shredded their intestines, resulting in their deaths. The incident happened on February 26 when their father, Arun, a salesman, was out of town.

Sunita had kept the bodies wrapped in plastic bags in the house for three days, during which she slept with them. Later, she threw the bodies in a nearby dry well.

The bodies were recovered from the well on Sunday.

Ratna’s husband, Arun, who married divorcée Ratna in 2009 after legally separating from his first wife, told the police that she had made earlier attempts to kill their daughters, after which she underwent psychiatric treatment.

Station House Officer of Alwargate police station Vikram Bhati said that on the basis of the post-mortem report and her neighbours’ statements Ratna was interrogated, after which she admitted to her crime.

She told the police that frequent fights in the family over the birth of her daughters had exhausted her.

“In view of the nature of her crime, the police would seek permission from the court to get her mental state medically examined,” Bhati said.